Part Jon Hassler, part Robert Altman film—and all-around terrific.
A rambunctious third novel from the author of A Stolen Tongue (1997) and The Dress Lodger (2000).
This time out, Holman virtuosically entangles two arresting plotlines: the ripple effects of the birth of (count ’em) eleven babies to an exhausted Virginia woman and the creation and transportation to Washington of the eponymous protein source. When “Manda” Frank, scion of a white-trash family, in the tidy, history-rich town of Three Chimneys, produces unprecedented results of her consumption of fertility drugs, well-meaning neighbors shower the beleaguered Franks with gifts and promises; presidential candidate Adams Brooke (the self-proclaimed “Farmer’s Friend”) drops by, and fiscally embattled dairy farmer Margaret Prickett is persuaded to re-create an obscure incident from the presidency of Thomas Jefferson: the creation and delivery to the White House of a 1200-pound wheel of cheese. Holman’s enthralling narrative, which ranges among the experiences and interrelationships of several expertly drawn characters, also incorporates an impressive amount of detailed information about such resolutely untrendy matters as farming, cheesemaking, animal husbandry, house construction, and the flexible,if austere moral nature of one of our most ingenious and articulate Founding Fathers. Poor Manda Frank’s nightmarish maternity (exacerbated when several babies inevitably die) is smartly juxtaposed with Margaret’s initially passionate, eventually wavering support of the pragmatic Brooke, and her conflicted relations with two other beautifully realized characters: her hired hand August Vaughn, a part-time “Chautauquan living historian” (i.e., Thomas Jefferson impersonator), unable to declare his love for Margaret; and her adolescent daughter Polly, herself seeking “liberation” through a romantic fixation on her intense, challenging history teacher. All strands are conjoined as the cheese marches to Washington, shepherded by Holman’s most winningly complex character: Pastor Leland Vaughn (August’s father), a tireless Christian worker torn between his guilt for having partially encouraged Manda’s perilous pregnancy and benign intervention in the needy lives of his parishioners and neighbors.
Part Jon Hassler, part Robert Altman film—and all-around terrific.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-87113-900-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2003
An ambitious look at how women’s roles have changed—and stayed the same—over the last 70 years.
A sprawling story about two sisters growing up, apart, and back together.
Jo and Bethie Kaufman may be sisters, but they don’t have much else in common. As young girls in the 1950s, Jo is a tomboy who’s uninterested in clothes while Bethie is the “pretty one” who loves to dress up. When their father dies unexpectedly, the Kaufman daughters and their mother, Sarah, suddenly have to learn how to take care of themselves at a time when women have few options. Jo, who realizes early on that she’s attracted to girls, knows that it will be difficult for her to ever truly be herself in a world that doesn’t understand her. Meanwhile, Bethie struggles with her appearance, using food to handle her difficult emotions. The names Jo and Beth aren’t all that Weiner (Hungry Heart, 2016, etc.) borrows from Little Women; she also uses a similar episodic structure to showcase important moments of the sisters’ lives as she follows them from girlhood to old age. They experience the civil rights movement, protests, sexual assault, drugs, sex, and marriage, all while dealing with their own personal demons. Although men are present in both women's lives, female relationships take center stage. Jo and Bethie are defined not by their relationships with husbands or boyfriends, but by their complex and challenging relationships with their mother, daughters, friends, lovers, and, ultimately, each other. Weiner resists giving either sister an easy, tidy ending; their sorrows are the kind that many women, especially those of their generation, have had to face. The story ends as Hillary Clinton runs for president, a poignant reminder of both the strides women have made since the 1950s and the barriers that still hold them back.
An ambitious look at how women’s roles have changed—and stayed the same—over the last 70 years.Pub Date: June 11, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-3348-0
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Refreshingly filled with love rather than sex, this coming-of-age novel examines the human cost of political repression.
A star-crossed romance captures the turmoil of pre-revolutionary Iran in Seraji’s debut.
From the rooftops of Tehran in 1973, life looks pretty good to 17-year-old Pasha Shahed and his friend Ahmed. They’re bright, funny and good-looking; they’re going to graduate from high school in a year; and they’re in love with a couple of the neighborhood girls. But all is not idyllic. At first the girls scarcely know the boys are alive, and one of them, Zari, is engaged to Doctor—not actually a doctor but an exceptionally gifted and politically committed young Iranian. In this neighborhood, the Shah is a subject of contempt rather than veneration, and residents fear SAVAK, the state’s secret police force, which operates without any restraint. Pasha, the novel’s narrator and prime dreamer, focuses on two key periods in his life: the summer and fall of 1973, when his life is going rather well, and the winter of 1974, when he’s incarcerated in a grim psychiatric hospital. Among the traumatic events he relates are the sudden arrest, imprisonment and presumed execution of Doctor. Pasha feels terrible because he fears he might have inadvertently been responsible for SAVAK having located Doctor’s hiding place; he also feels guilty because he’s always been in love with Zari. She makes a dramatic political statement, setting herself on fire and sending Pasha into emotional turmoil. He is both devastated and further worried when the irrepressible Ahmed also seems to come under suspicion for political activity. Pasha turns bitterly against religion, raising the question of God’s existence in a world in which the bad guys seem so obviously in the ascendant. Yet the badly scarred Zari assures him, “Things will change—they always do.”
Refreshingly filled with love rather than sex, this coming-of-age novel examines the human cost of political repression.Pub Date: May 5, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-451-22681-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: NAL/Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2009
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